Evacuation systems are a vital part of ships and other structures operating at, on or in water. In passenger ships, the evacuation systems are designed for a large number of passengers and occupy a great amount of space on board. Generally speaking, evacuation systems occupy space that could be utilised for passengers. Present evacuation systems often utilise a combination of rescue boats or tender boats and inflatable life rafts arranged around the ship, occupying a lot of space.
As many passengers, especially on board cruise ships, demand an external cabin with a view, a problem has arisen with evacuation system primarily mounted on the outside of the ship as these often block the view. A need for reducing the space occupied by evacuation systems has therefore arisen, especially a need for an evacuation system maximising the number of cabins with a sea view.
At the same time, the size of rescue boats or life rafts is constantly increasing to match the growing sizes of ships. When a large number of passengers have to be evacuated into one life raft, speed is a crucial factor. The evacuation process will always be subject to bottlenecks and the resulting accumulation of passengers at certain positions. It is therefore important that a certain flow in the evacuation process is achieved, and that different types on passengers can move relatively easily through the system to the correct seating position in the raft.
Further, the organisation and positioning of passengers in the rafts have become an important issue with the growing raft size. Traditionally, passengers have just been seated on the bottom of the rafts in an unstructured manner. However, a large number of passengers seated in an unstructured manner may occupy much more space than intended.